Use in Battle
Rifled muskets were heavily used in the American Civil War. The American-made Springfield Model 1861 was the most widely used weapon in the war, and the British Pattern 1853 Enfield was the second most widely used.
The British Enfield was also used in the Crimean War where its greater range gave it great success against the much shorter ranged Russian smoothbore muskets.
The rifled muskets were not always successful on the battlefield, however. In the Italian War of 1859, French forces defeated Austrian rifled muskets by aggressive skirmishing and rapid bayonet assaults at close range.
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Famous quotes containing the word battle:
“What a battle a man must fight everywhere to maintain his standing army of thoughts, and march with them in orderly array through the always hostile country! How many enemies there are to sane thinking! Every soldier has succumbed to them before he enlists for those other battles.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)